Changes in working memory performance in youth following concussion

ABSTRACT

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the working memory (WM) performance pre- and post-concussion, and investigate the relationships between performance changes and characteristics such as self-reported symptom scores, number of days post-injury and age at injury in 10–14-year-old youth. Methods: Twenty-one youth (17 males) aged 10–14 years recruited from the community completed verbal and non-verbal WM tasks pre- and post-concussion. Performance was measured using accuracy and performance errors (false alarms and misses). Pre- and post-tests were compared using a Wilcoxon signed rank test, and effect size was determined using matched-pairs rank biserial correlation. Results: Comparisons showed lower verbal WM accuracy at post-test, greater verbal and non-verbal WM false alarm errors at post-test, and greater verbal WM miss errors at post-test (all r ≥ 0.30). Correlations between performance and characteristics revealed associations between younger youth and lower non-verbal WM accuracy and more false alarms at post-test, as well as an association among non-verbal WM miss errors, higher PCS scores and fewer days since injury at post-test. Conclusions: The current study found lower WM performance in youth following concussion. Furthermore, the findings suggest that false alarm errors may be a useful screening measure acutely post-concussion when assessing WM performance in youth.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent
• athlete
• children
• cognition
• concussion
• traumatic brain injury

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Nick Reed, Sabrina Agnihotri, Tali Dick, Amy Wilkinson, and Sam Liu for their contribution to data collection.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest. Funding for this research was gratefully provided by Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation (M.K., grant number 483615); and CIHR (M.K., grant number 484706).